Bangkok deputy permanent secretary Wantanee Wattana on Monday thanked city officials for their hard work in ensuring public safety during Songkran, Thailand’s biggest holiday of the year.

Wantanee visited officials at the Centre for Songkran Festival Situation Administration at City Hall in Phra Nakhon district to offer moral support and gratitude.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) set up the centre to monitor the situation in the city during this year’s Songkran festival, which ran from April 13-17.

Songkran is among the busiest festivals of the year as millions of people travel back to their hometowns and villages to visit their families. Meanwhile, hundreds of events are also organised across all areas of the capital. The festival also brings the notorious “Seven Dangerous Days”, the period during the week of Songkran when road accidents and fatalities in Thailand spike.

BMA’s Medical Service Department reported on Monday that road accidents killed 17 people and injured 1,229 in Bangkok from April 11-15.

Fatalities due to traffic accidents in the capital rose from 13 recorded over the same Songkran period last year. City Hall had aimed to limit the number of deaths from traffic accidents to six.

The Seven Dangerous Days of Songkran last year saw 1,917 road accidents and 278 deaths across the country.